Live from the floor of AU

Tue, 2009-12-01 15:31

I'm using my iPhone to write AU posts to this blog, Twitter, and Facebook. Of the three, it seems easiest to post to Facebook. You can, for instance, just take a picture and upload it to Facebook with one click.

As you probably know, Autodesk was probably the first developer to be talking "sustainability" years ago. This year it really pressed home that point by giving each attendee a nifty backpack/roller made entirely of recycled plastic. You can't tell that by looking at them -- very nice...

Later today, during a manufacturing event, we found out about the just-released Inventor Publisher -- a technology preview on Autodesk Labs. You can download it free and use Inventor or .DWF files to created 3D product documentation. Creating an animation is easy -- just select the model and walk through the steps. What is really cool -- the application lets you publish 3D rotateable models to the iPhone! (Also to Flash, Power Point, and Word, among others.)

In another presentation, Nino Caldarola, a designer at IMAGINIT Technology, worked with Stratasys and RedEye in the design and 3D printing of a complete aircraft turbine engine in which 6 blades go one way and 6 blades go the other way. This increases the efficiency of the design as well as eliminates any gyroscopic effects from the large mass of the engine. The model is useful as a prototype to work in parallel with the engine construction and provides a good way to figure out, say, the fixtures in advance. The industrial-grade plastic used to print the design was strong enough to allow the engine to be bolted together using industrial-grade fasteners.